When directors at The Storytellers consultancy wanted to move the business on to the next level, they brought in a new chief executive to shake things up. How is it working out?
Alison Esse The Storytellers was conceived by four of us around my kitchen table – we wanted to create a better way of helping leaders of large organisations to bring their strategy and vision to life and really start to engage people in that story of where they're going. Martin Clarkson has a background in retail, Marcus Hayes in strategic communication, and Chris Spencer and I in marketing, PR and internal communications. Bringing those skills together we harness the power of storytelling to create behavioural and cultural change within companies.
Scott Garrett Our company tends to get called in on the basis of an event. That could be something which takes a long time to happen like a set of competitive, commercial or environmental circumstances – the financial meltdown, for example, which caused the need for people to behave in different ways to survive and grow. Or it could be a merger, where two different cultures come together and a common culture needs to emerge from that. Or perhaps it's the arrival of a new chief executive, who wants to say "look guys, this is my story, come with me on it".
Alison Esse We start by working with the top team, the chief executive and his direct reports, to co-create a compelling story. It's not about listing strategy, values, mission and vision, it's about weaving all those things together into a narrative that can travel through the organisation. When we began eight years ago our early clients were Yell, Boots and Standard Life. But it quickly expanded and now we have a global client list which includes Hilton, Coca-Cola, the Wynn Hotel in Las Vegas, Logica and HBOS and Lloyds.
Scott Garrett I first saw Alison speaking at a conference and was intrigued by the notion of storytelling. It related closely to something I'd recently been involved in at Heinz, where I was head of brand and marketing. Listening to her I thought, "I really wish I'd known that back then." I'd begun my career at Saatchis in the Eighties, worked in global jobs for JWT and had also worked for Nike and most recently as the commercial director for Williams Formula 1, so brand stories were where my heartland had been. I struck up a conversation with her and it just developed from there. I joined The Storytellers in June 2010.
Alison Esse Before Scott joined we had grown organically – we were a bunch of people doing something we were passionate about. But we made the decision that we could either carry on as a sort of lifestyle business, or we could make the serious commitment to grow and make something of the company. We recognised we needed a different set of skills to help us do that, and when I met Scott the timing was right. We were looking for strong leadership that could take us through change.
Scott Garrett I think if you speak to the other four directors they would consider my appointment to be brave on their part. The business had been run in a very collegiate manner, which meant that everyone was happy with every decision that was taken. That builds bonds, but if anybody is remotely unhappy with a decision, it's not taken and that slows progress.
Alison Esse Every one of us recognises how much we've moved on since Scott came in. We've updated our brand, defined clear departmental responsibilities – including budget accountability – and we've moved to fantastic new offices. He has brought a real determination and drive to pursue a level of excellence and professionalism that we need to stay ahead of the game.
Scott Garrett In the first six months I felt it was important to make the right decisions and worry about consequences afterwards, so that style did jar a little bit at first. There are close bonds between the other four directors, and I still feel like the new boy at school from time to time, but I don't mind that. A key thing we have done is written our own story – we've turned our process on ourselves and taken our own medicine.
Alison Esse We've learnt a lot about our process and ourselves, and we've had the most brilliant last 12 months. We've had some fantastic results with Nationwide, Philips and Logica to name but a few. And with Hilton they've seen a distinct increase in loyalty scores in the hotels where we piloted our programme – we can directly attribute the improvement in their number of bookings to our work with them.
Scott Garrett At any given time we have a dozen or so active clients, and over the next two or three years that will rise to about 20. We're looking at other sources of income as well, so we're feeling pretty bullish.
